Conventionally, contact lenses have been used to correct various vision conditions such as myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism and presbyopia. Moreover, the contact lenses include hard contact lenses, which have a small lens diameter and can be used for a comparatively long period of time, and soft contact lenses (including disposable type contact lenses), which have a large lens diameter and can be placed comparatively easily. When optimal contact lenses are selected depending on a user's preference and/or adaptability, the contact lenses can lead to appropriate correction of the user's vision without causing any stress such as a feeling of unpleasantness or discomfort upon wearing of the contact lenses.
When a user purchases such contact lenses, a process including the following procedures is typically performed:
(1) the user visits a contact lens store, and receives an explanation of contact lenses and guidance on a clinic;
(2) the user visits the clinic, applies at an information desk of the clinic, and is interviewed in regard to the type of a preferred contact lens, a past history of the user, presence or absence of allergies, a use of an eye drop, and the like;
(3) an eye care practitioner executes examinations such as an examination of the anterior segment and/or the fundus of the eye, an objective refraction, a subjective refraction and a measurement of the radius curvature of the cornea, and the eye care practitioner selects the specification of contact lenses suitable for the user at the eye care practitioner's discretion;
(4) a trial lens is placed on the user's eye, and the specification such as a curvature, a dioptric power and a diameter of the lens is determined;
(5) the eye care practitioner checks a state of the user wearing the lens, and the like, and issues an instruction; and
(6) the user presents the instruction to a store, and purchases contact lenses in accordance with the instruction; and the like.
Also, ordering contact lenses for a second and the following times often includes similar procedures.
According to such a process of purchasing contact lenses, for the user to purchase contact lenses, it is necessary to follow a process in which the user visits a contact lens store, is introduced to a clinic, undergoes various examinations such as an examination of the anterior segment and/or the fundus of the eye, an objective refraction, a subjective refraction and a measurement of the radius curvature of the cornea in the clinic, and thereafter receives an instruction issued by an eye care practitioner in the clinic.
However, user candidates and the like who are hesitating as to whether the user should use a contact lens or not are likely to feel such a process to be cumbersome. Therefore, some users and user candidates disfavor such procedures and abandon purchase of contact lenses, and thus a widespread use of contact lenses seems to have been hampered.
In addition, in recent years, soft contact lenses, disposable contact lenses in particular, become widely used. Along with the widespread use of soft contact lenses, a decrease of opportunities of prescriptions for hard contact lenses is pronounced, and lowering of a technical level of eye care practitioners caused by this decrease is found. As a result, cases where even though an eye care practitioner is supposed to prescribe hard contact lenses, the eye care practitioner evades selection of optimal contact lenses and recommends soft contact lenses are concerned.
In order to solve such disadvantageous problems, for example, utilization of a system for selling a medical supply has been proposed (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2004-78675). According to the system for selling a medical supply, since a terminal of a medical institution has a database to store electronic medical records of a user, a prescription for the user can be prepared based on retrieved data from the database. Therefore, a simplification of prescribing procedures can be expected.
However, even if the system for selling a medical supply is used, a new user needs to visit an eye care practitioner and undergo prerequisite examinations for contact lens selection; therefore, the system is less likely to promote a diffusion of the contact lens to new users. Moreover, even if the system for selling a medical supply is used, there is still a possibility that a specific type of contact lenses (for example, hard contact lenses) is not recommended due to lack of an eye care practitioner's skill and the like, and accordingly there is still a concern that a prescription of contact lenses optimal for a user may fail.